Since moving to Italian team Juventus in the summer, Cristiano Ronaldo has moved closer to Barcelona star Lionel Messi in terms of salary earned. The Portuguese star now earns an eye watering $12,295 an hour which, although less than the Argentine, is over $2,000 more than 3rd place Neymar who is earning a paltry in comparison $10,245 an hour. Moving further down the list and you can pay for 4th place Gareth Bale 3 times before you have paid for Cristiano Ronaldo. Being one of the greatest footballers around has helped Ronaldo to become a global superstar, with countless amounts of external sponsorship deals also helping to bump up his monthly incomings.
In terms of his wage from football, according to research from betting sites uk, you could purchase the players in 4th to 6th position, Bale, Paul Pogba and Oscar, and still have nearly $2,000 a month change before you have paid out the same money as Juventus have to Ronaldo. The argument being is that would you be getting a similar player to the Portuguese captain? In terms of Welshman Gareth Bale, his stats while a teammate of Ronaldo are 88 goals in 189 games, a goal nearly every 2 games. Comparing this to Ronaldo, who scored 249 goals in 239 games, meaning he was pretty much guaranteed to score every game. A club could pay out 4 times as much money, but they would get 4 times as many goals in return, and you can see how much Madrid have suffered since their talisman has left.
You could argue that Ronaldo was used as more of a centre forward whereas Bale himself was left out on the wing, but then we can compare him to Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero. The hourly rate that Aguero is paid is $2,675.32 meaning you can have 4 and a half of the diminutive striker for the same rate as Ronaldo. In the very same period as looked at above, he has 152 goals in 204 games for the English Premier League side. Much closer to Ronaldo’s figures but still some way off. Another argument could be made that Aguero plays in a more competitive league but in 98 European Competition games, he has 57 goals. Ronaldo has 126 in 167 which still puts him above the Argentine averagely. Ronaldo has done it consistently across 4 leagues, European competitions and International level. This is why he is able to command such a high payment for his services.
Infographic source; https://www.betting-sites.uk.com/soccer-earnings/
